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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27994395">Excuses She Finds To Hold Her Lover's Hand In Public</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsxleil/pseuds/sunsxleil'>sunsxleil</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Merry Christmas, I Love You [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Carol (2015)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Fluff, Ice Skating</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:35:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,333</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27994395</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsxleil/pseuds/sunsxleil</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Carol and Therese rarely make impulsive trips, and even when they do, it often only pales in comparison to their trip west. But then, it's December, and the holiday cheer creeps around them even weeks away from Christmas—so of course they're unable to resist a little impulsive idea to go ice skating.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Carol Aird/Therese Belivet</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Merry Christmas, I Love You [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2035672</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Excuses She Finds To Hold Her Lover's Hand In Public</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Just a little something from me again! Prompt from a little Google search where <a href="https://oneshotsandheadcanons.tumblr.com/post/167716040859/christmas-prompts">this list</a> popped up. Hope you guys enjoy it!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Easy now.”</p><p>It’s well into the night, but with Christmas lights adding to the brightness of the streetlamps, the night is well-lit around the ice skating rink. It’s cold, but it’s a Saturday night so what the heck? Even with layers upon layers on, there’s a significant amount of people on the rink and getting into it—including two women at the brink.</p><p>“I thought you didn’t know how to skate?”</p><p>“So?”</p><p>“How do you know I should go ‘easy now’?” Therese wears one of Carol’s fur coats over her own outerwear, and her cheeks are pink between her favorite hat and scarf. Her eyes are bright, and the corners of her lips cannot resist from curving up. “You haven’t even gotten in the rink.”</p><p>Carol rolls her eyes. Indeed, free from her winter Uggs, Carol’s glove-clad hands are still curled around the railings while her rented skates have yet to do anything but dig deeper into the snow. “Forgive me, sweetheart, if I’m a little more worried about you than myself,” and despite her disapproval, Carol smiles, “and isn’t that what they all say when one enters an ice skating rink? 'Easy now'?”</p><p>With one wobbly foot set on the rink, Therese squeezes Carol’s hand. “Come on.” Therese says, and all it takes is Carol’s eyes meeting hers for them to slip off the edge and slide into the rink.</p><p>They didn’t originally plan to go ice skating. Really, it didn’t even enter into their plans last week. It’s just that Abby had visited earlier in the week, telling them about this <em>amazing skating rink</em> she had gone to with her redhead, and sure, Carol and Therese had considered, but the thought had gone away almost completely by the next night. It wasn’t until Therese was assigned to take pictures near a skating rink that the idea really sunk its teeth into them. Oh, and that same day Carol had coincidentally spotted a snow globe in a shop window. Somehow after that, they just had the same thoughts and exploded with it as soon as they both came home.</p><p>That was yesterday.</p><p>Now, they’ve driven quite a bit to get here, and with the two of them falling on their asses every couple of steps, it’s worth it. They have not let go of each other’s hand since they got here, and there have been no looks, no staring—if one were to look around, it doesn’t even seem like anyone sees them at all.</p><p>And if they’d look at anywhere but each other, they’d see that everyone else was doing as they did: not minding anyone else but each other, and of course, the state of the blades beneath their feet.</p><p>“Oh!” Carol slips, and Therese almost slips back as well when Carol falls against her. Therese holds back her laughter, but her shoulders shudder and her entire body shakes, earning her an amused swat from Carol. “Don’t laugh, you almost fell over just two minutes ago.”</p><p>While that may be true— “I’m not the one making excuses to hold you.”</p><p>Carol raises a brow and slowly, slowly lifts her eyes to Therese.</p><p>Therese shrugs, and Carol is almost compelled to lean closer, just a little closer, and whisper something naughty in Therese’s ear. Instead, she says, “Well, look who’s getting cocky.” And Carol winks before pushing off of Therese and trying to balance again.</p><p>Carol tries to take a step again, to no avail, but Therese is good at staying in one place as soon as Carol looks to forget they should take it bit by bit. This time, Carol’s hand finds purchase on her waist, and Therese laughs. “Do you think we’ll skate better if we pretended to dance?”</p><p>Carol, while having certain prowess in dancing for social occasions, did not quite have as much control of her feet on more slippery surfaces. In fact of the two of them, Carol was the one more likely to trip over her own two feet. At least when it was just Therese looking. “And what makes you think that would end better?”</p><p>“I mean, that way you won’t have to pretend you’re falling every few seconds just to hold me.”</p><p>Carol squints and Therese innocently shrugs, though her smile is anything but. Carol opens her mouth as Therese bites her lip. “Is that <em>you</em> finding ways to hold <em>me</em>?”</p><p>“Should I have been more subtle?”</p><p>“Oh no,” and Carol straightens, pulls Therese closer to her so that they could feel each other’s body heat from under their coats. “I prefer you do that.”</p><p>“Do what?” Therese asks, as she watches Carol looking down at their feet, inching bit by bit to a position less likely for them to end up ass first on the ice. Carol is smiling, and it’s the smile that means Carol is remembering something from probably their first days together, and Therese could only guess what it could possibly be.</p><p>“Challenge me.” Carol’s grip around Therese’s waist only tightens, and for a moment, Therese almost believes they might be able to dance in ice skates without slipping up in the first three moves. Carol shakes her hair out of her eyes, and lifts her gaze to Therese. “I like it when you challenge me.”</p><p>Therese takes a sharp breath.</p><p>Carol’s looking at her as if she were the puzzle piece in the world that took all the work to find but only a second to make fit. And Therese fit into Carol’s life, smack-dab in the middle of it: right in the middle of this skating rink with her, right in the middle of their living room, and even back all those years ago, behind that department store counter and available to attend to no one else but Carol. These past few years have proven just that, in all the ways they both know so well and in all the other ways they’re only now discovering. And they’ve discovered Therese likes to challenge Carol, in the exact way that Carol likes to be challenged. It could range anywhere between ‘<em>I bet you can’t wash the dishes and get to bed before I fall asleep</em>’ to ‘<em>can you actually behave enough tonight while we switch roles</em>’. Carol loves those sides pf Therese, gets giddy even at having the special permission to see them, and more and more Therese finds herself indulging them both instead of keeping her thoughts to herself.</p><p>Besides, the small smile Carol always makes is worth it: the kind like a little tap dance in Carol’s chest, that Therese wants to see again and again and again.</p><p>“Will you dance with me then?”</p><p>Therese stares into Carol’s eyes as Carol nods, and they take their first slide, and another, and another, all the while not taking their eyes off of each other. Carol delights in the small puffs of breath coming out from between Therese’s lips, and Therese delights in the minute waves Carol’s hair makes as they move. Further and further from the edge, deeper and deeper into the rink, and they have yet to fall. How could they, anyway, when Carol’s hand is tight on Therese’s waist, and Therese’s hands are wrapped around Carol’s arms?</p><p>Carol’s smile grows wider and wider as she notices how far they’ve come, and the buzzing excitement vibrates into Therese. Soon, they’re laughing, whooping as they inch around the ice together, round in circles or close to the middle, they do not know. The elation is so high that when Carol trips on Therese’s foot, neither quite care about Carol falling on top of Therese, and how Carol’s far too close for them to appear even the slightest bit as simple platonic companions skating on a Saturday night. Instead, they laugh, and for a moment, they just look at each other in the middle of that rink, the ice biting past their clothes. With their bodies and hearts just warm enough together, they don't even mind the cold.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The prompt was, and you've probably guessed it: Ice skating.</p><p>Especially since I haven't edited this too heavily, all mistakes are mine, and I don't own the characters—Patricia Highsmith does. Only about two more weeks till Christmas! I hope you guys enjoyed that, and happy Carolmas!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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